The force of the blast pushed him back against the dome, but he was far enough away that it didn’t even break his concentration. Not everyone was so fortunate. When the air cleared, the castle’s barracks were half-gone.
‘God, I hope there aren’t any normal people here,’ said Axiolis.
Zeff took the opportunity to plant more drills. He got out four more within close proximity to one another before a trio of servants attacked him in unison.
‘Don’t kill Axiolis!’ ordered Dergoz. ‘We need them alive!’
Zeff knew each attacker. Oscar Murray, Adam Leroy, Davin Echer. All decent, loyal men in his mind, and unfortunately, they were all too strong for Zeff to kill instantly.
But that didn’t mean they were strong enough to stop him.
Oscar sent a path of destruction at him while Adam and Davin tried to flank him with an arm of freezing gas and a flashy silver sword, respectively.
An ice platform flung Zeff up and over their attacks, and he formed another hand sign--middle and index fingers fully extended, this time with both hands. Literal hand guns, they were, both in shape and in function. Bullets of empowered ice shot out in rapid clusters. His three opponents scattered, but Zeff still mowed down Oscar and Adam. Davin only survived because of sudden silver armor, which had still taken a beating.
‘Look out!’ said Axiolis.
A long stretch of radium reached all the way from across the courtyard, and Zeff used a block of ice to knock himself out of the way. But it wasn’t enough. The radium branched out after him and gored him through the stomach. It continued branching downward, trying to find its leverage against the ground in order to keep Zeff suspended in mid-air.
Again, Zeff had to multitask. A water jet to cut himself free. A shower of frozen bullets to keep Lawrence busy. Zeff hit the ground with a thud and yanked the rest of the radium out of his chest, thankful he couldn’t feel the awful burns it had left in his flesh.
A dark serial novel. Set in a modern fantasy world called Eleg. Mature language. Updates every night at midnight PST by ~400 words.
"a trio servants"
ReplyDeleteNot sure if this is wrong, but "a trio of servants" sounds more normal to me.
"in order [to] keep Zeff suspended in mid-air"
If the whole compound is sealed in a giant dome that turns water into explosive gas on contact, then why not just keep sending wave after wave in every direction until everyone is neck deep? No one would dare attack for fear of blowing you all into orbit.
ReplyDeleteBoth fixed now, thank you.
ReplyDeleteMainly, because that wouldn't be enough stop Lawrence from attacking him.
ReplyDeleteWow, Lawrence thinks so little of his men that he would rather kill them all and there reapers, then allow Zeff to get away? Military structure or not, why would anyone fight for him? Historically, commanding officers like that more often then not are taken out by accidents arranged by there own men.
ReplyDeleteOh, no, I meant because Lawrence wouldn't need to ignite the gas to keep fighting.
ReplyDeleteThe last few pages have had some weird repetitive sentence structure:
ReplyDelete"Literal hand guns, they were,..." and similarly "[X], it was, [explanation]" several times earlier. I find it really jarring and think every time you should either put the "it was/they were" section at the front or remove it completely.
Just thought I'd mention it, but loving the story. :)
Hmm. Yeah, I did it three times int he last chapter (two "it was, [explain]" and one "they were, [explain]"). It is a sentence structure I like, partly due to the sense of distinction it lends, but I agree with that it's a little too frequent here. Decided to rephrase one of them.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your attentiveness.
It's pretty sudden, considering that he just materialized it from nowhere
ReplyDelete'Davin only survived because of sudden silver armor': something doesn't fit here. I don't know what exactly, but it isn't correct somehow. The sudden appearance of silver armor, maybe?
ReplyDeleteHmm seeing a destruction user again has me thinking how would one use a hyper state. I mean, how would (or rather, how *could*) a destruction user actually use pan-rozum? Doesn't seem like it'd work...
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I want a Hector vs Davin sometime in the future. MAKE IT HAPPEN, FROST!
Garovel did say there are multiple hyper states and that each one is not necessarily useful to each servant. It's a matter of finding your best one, and right now we don't know anything about any of the others. Frost keeps his cards close to his chest. As he should.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I think you could find uses for pan rozum for a destruction user. Think about their weaknesses - they have no additional maneuverability or ability to hamper the movement of their opponent to prevent them from escaping their destruction paths. Destruction users are too limited and therefore too predictable, so pan rozum could suit them very well indeed. You're thinking how it could make them more destructive, and it can't. But it can make them much more *effective*. Imagine if a destruction user could also use materialization to stop their opponents movement a crucial few seconds? Or to protect themselves so they could fire their attack elsewhere? What if they could transfigure to make mist, disguising the direction of their attack until too late? A destruction user with the utility of a few of the other abilities could be terrifying.
What Frost said. Lawrence is the greatest threat and he wouldn't be in any danger of igniting the gas so he'd just keep going.
ReplyDeleteYeah I remembered that there are multiple hyper states, but at this point I know most bout is pan-rozum (I think the other I read was pan-forma?) so I wondered boit that. And I'm having severe difficulty thinking up ways for a destruction user to use that hyper state. I keep comparing it to Harper's pan-rozum and I come up empty. I mean, Harper still was using light with everything. How would one materialize destruction, or intergrate it? Or mutate it? My brain hurts trying to think of it lol. It was just an idle thought, but I'll keep wondering and make some guess sooner or later. Preferably, before I read that Frost gave the answer.
ReplyDeleteInteresting point. I honestly had not noticed that every new ability Harper used still revolved around light. Apparently you can break down the barriers but that doesn't mean you get to pick and choose what the new abilities do, they all relate to your starting gift. That does make things somewhat more sane and restricted, which is very Frost. Better world building that way.
ReplyDeleteBut, the destruction ability doesn't create destruction, it creates a path of destruction. Specifically it seems to be a kind of tunnel of obliteration. We'll see later that a skilled user can change the direction of the path. So...if you used Alteration to gain even greater control over the path? To direct two or three or more and just keep on using them all over the field? Sounds terrifying to me.
Well, pan-rozum is about integrating facets of the other powers into your own. Since a destruction user's power is violently expanding space, here are my guesses of what it might do.
ReplyDeleteMaterialization: creating destruction paths remotely, possibly aimed different directions using velocity states.
Transfiguration: possibly creating destructive regions from their body, such as having incoming objects be destroyed on flesh contact. This seems most likely to me. A master of the technique would basically become an unkillable hole in space, with enemy attacks just vanishing through their skin. There's a powerful Abolisher mentioned later known as the Living Void, perhaps that's what he does.
Alteration: precisely controlling the beam path.
Integration: perhaps holding certain objects in the beam path together against the distortion, allowing tricks like safely firing through human shields.
Mutation: can't think of anything.
Yes, I thought I'd written bout the path. Though, I'd assumed that destruction user could already alter the size, but not the shape, of the path. I mean, Colt using his gun as a conduit made me think that. I'd assumed that a high level user could make multiple small paths using their fingers or something. Perhaps, it's that assumption that's keeping me from guessing bout a hyper state since I've already attributed the ideas you mentioned to destruction alone, albeit high level.
ReplyDeleteLike I said to Singer, I'd thought high level destruction users could do the ideas you had for Alteration and Materialization. I'm now wondering if I've overestimated the ability's limits, and if so, by how much.
ReplyDeleteYour idea for Tranfiguration is brilliant. I'm not so sure bout the Integration, however. I might have to reread the details of that ability.
You misunderstand me - I'm talking a level of control where the paths are basically freewheeling invisible giant snakes of destruction.
ReplyDelete(O_O)
ReplyDeleteAh, I did not think of that
One guy standing in the middle of all that, in complete control of it, would make for a respectably terrifying pan rozum, deshou?
ReplyDelete